Jennifer Smith Richards

Writer

Jennifer Smith Richards has been a data reporter at the Chicago Tribune since 2015. Smith Richards previously covered schools and education for more than a decade at newspapers in Huntington, W.Va.; Utica, N.Y.; Savannah, Ga.; and Columbus, Ohio. Her work has touched on everything from sexual abuse in schools to police accountability to school choice.

Recent Articles

They are the littlest Cubs fans. Wrigley Rose wasn't supposed to arrive for another few weeks, but she came into this world with two distinctions: a World Series-worthy name and the (unofficial) honor of being the first baby born in a Chicago-area hospital on New Year's Day. After a short labor,...

A small group of Chicago police officers have amassed more than 100 complaints each over their careers, including notoriously corrupt cops who wound up in prison but also others whose allegations of repeated wrongdoing were never before made public, a Tribune analysis of five decades of complaint...

A flashlight. A wrench. An L-shaped object under a towel. Even a Chicago Fire Department badge in a wallet. All allegedly have been mistaken for guns in recent cases in which people were shot by Chicago police officers who believed they were under threat, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found....

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the U.S. government approved low-interest loans to more than 140 Illinois businesses that said the fallout from Sept. 11 took an economic toll on their operations. Many of the "economic injury disaster loans" went to travel-related businesses...

Levail Smith had just cracked open a can of beer outside a Rogers Park laundromat on the Fourth of July two years ago when a Chicago police tactical officer pulled over his unmarked car and approached him. Smith, a 45-year-old ex-Marine with a history of mental problems, walked away briskly, ignoring...

Every five days, on average, a Chicago police officer fired a gun at someone. In 435 shootings over a recent six-year span, officers killed 92 people and wounded 170 others. While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention, they occurred with such brutal regularity — and with scant...

The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission has begun disciplinary proceedings against a former city of Chicago lawyer accused of concealing evidence in a fatal police shooting case. The commission released a formal complaint Monday against attorney Jordan Marsh, alleging that...

Chicago's police oversight agency on Thursday ruled two shootings unjustified amid the ongoing controversy over how officers use force against residents and how those incidents are investigated. In both cases, the Independent Police Review Authority ruled police fired into vehicles though the officers...